ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2016
Health-related quality of life of among elders in rural China: the effect of widowhood.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gender differences in post-traumatic symptomatology among refugees: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of child loss on parents' health-related quality of life: evidence from the china health and retirement longitudinal study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Article
- Health related quality of life among the below poverty line population in Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Health-Related Quality of Life and Bereavement in the 2019 Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The effect of social pension on health-related quality of life of the rural older people: a panel study from China.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Social Prescription Interventions Addressing Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Meta-Review Integrating On-the-Ground Resources.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Review
- Assessing Quality of Life with Community Dwelling Elderly Adults: A Mass Survey in Taiwan.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Marital duration in China: Trends and gender differences, 1982-2015.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Experiences of becoming widowed in old age - a cross-countries study with qualitative interviews from Denmark and quantitative measures of association in a Swedish sample.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2021Article
- The Association between Widowhood and Cognitive Function among Chinese Elderly People: Do Gender and Widowhood Duration Make a Difference?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Physical and Mental Health Level of the Elderly Living in Central Greece.Materia socio-medica · 2021Article
- Activities of daily living, life orientation, and health-related quality of life among older people in nursing homes: a national cross-sectional study in China.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2020Article
- Current status on the ability of the elderly in rural China: implications for future nursing and policy.Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy · 2020Article
- Unmet needs of symptom management and associated factors among the HIV-positive population in Shanghai, China: A cross-sectional study.Applied nursing research : ANR · 2020Article
- Sociodemographic variations in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among elderly individuals in an urban locality in India.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2019Article
- Factors that influence the health of older widows and widowers-A systematic review of quantitative research.Nursing open · 2019Review
- Quality of life in HIV-infected Chinese women and their family caregivers: an intervention study.AIDS care · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeChina has an enormous and rapidly growing population of widowed elders. Little is known about how losing a spouse affects elders' health-related quality of life (QOL), especially in the rural areas where most Chinese elders live. This article analyzes QOL data collected in 2014 among rural Chinese elders to address this question.
methodsSF12 questionnaires and information about individual and household characteristics were collected from 3053 elders aged 60 and above in rural China. We compared the physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) scores between 1925 married elders and 1060 widowed elders in a bivariate model stratifying by gender and age group and in a general factorial ANOVA multivariate analysis that examined and controlled for other predictors of PCS and MCS scores including education, chronic disease, and family and household factors.
resultsWidowed male and female elders' physical health and mental health were in decline with age. Widowed men had lower PCS and MCS scores than married men. Widowed women also had lower PCS scores, but differences in MCS scores did not reach statistical significance. In multivariate analysis, widowhood was associated with lower PCS and MCS scores overall. Support from children was associated with better QOL and, based on interaction analysis, appeared to mitigate negative effects of widowhood.
conclusionsWidowed rural elders in China have lower physical and mental quality of life than their married counterparts. These elders rely on their children for care, and a supportive family is associated with better QOL.
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